Chavez, Correa threaten Honduras

Reuters:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday put troops on alert after a coup in Honduras and said he would respond militarily if his envoy to the Central American country was kidnapped or killed.

Chavez said Honduran soldiers took away the Cuban ambassador and left the Venezuelan ambassador on the side of a road after beating him during the army's coup against his leftist ally, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya.

The Honduran army ousted Zelaya and exiled him in Central America's first military coup since the Cold War, after he upset the army by trying to win re-election.

Chavez said on state television if his ambassador to Venezuela was killed, or if troops entered the Venezuelan Embassy, "that military junta would be entering a de facto state of war. We would have to act militarily ... I have put the armed forces of Venezuela on alert."

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, part of a coalition of leftist governments headed by Chavez that includes Honduras, said he would support military action if Ecuador's diplomats or those of its allies were threatened.

The socialist Chavez has in the past threatened to use his armed forces in the region but never followed through. He said that if a new government is sworn in after the coup it would be defeated.

"We will bring them down, we will bring them down, I tell you," he said, while hundreds of red-shirted supporters gathered outside Venezuela's presidential palace in solidarity with Zelaya.

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It sounds like the socialist are threatening to interfere in another countries internal affairs. This is happening the day after their socialist allies in Argentina were decisively defeated. It sounds like he is trying to manufacture a pretext for intervention. He might get away with it if he tried, because Hillary's state department appears to be on his side for some strange reason.

In a later report AFP said:

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In Honduras however, Micheletti brushed off worldwide condemnation of the takeover.

He "had came to the presidency not by a coup d'etat but by a completely legal process as set out in our laws," he said. The curfew would end on Tuesday, he added.

Micheletti issued a direct warning to Chavez, saying Honduras is determined to "go to war" if case of external interference on the part of "this gentleman."

The interim leader said he had information that several batallions of troops were being prepared outside of Honduras for intervention.

"I would not want anybody to have the courage to do that because our armed forces are ready to defend the country," he argued.

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It appears that the teachers union are the main supporters of the former President.